


"Steven said we should talk,"

by Captain_Toad



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Toad/pseuds/Captain_Toad
Summary: They won. Homeworld is slowly fixing itself. The diamonds are no longer hostile. The corrupted gems have been fixed. All is right with the world. But is it? Lapis and Peridot still have some unresolved things to talk about.





	"Steven said we should talk,"

Peridot stood in the doorway to the balcony. Her eyes were fixed on Lapis, cross-legged on the floor, her blue skin ethereal and glowing in the moonlight. Peridot shook herself off. She couldn't just keep gazing at her companion's beauty, no matter how stunning she looked. No, that wouldn't get anything done at all. She gently walked up beside Lapis, and cleared her throat.  
"Mind if I sit here?" Peridot asked with a crooked smile. Lapis, who had been transfixified by the heavenly night sky, snapped out of her daze, a look of surprise momentarily flashing across her face.  
"Oh! Of course!" She replied hurriedly, patting the space beside her. Peridot gratefully sat down beside the cobalt coloured alien. She took off her visor and stared into her reflection, thinking of what to say. The viridescent gem took a deep breath, even though her kind didn't need to.  
"Steven... Steven said we should talk," Peridot explained. Lapis gave a quizzical look. "About... you know. The whole thing! With you, uh... leaving with the barn," Lapis's face fell in understanding.  
"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that," She sighed sadly, fidgeting with the bronze ribbon on her pants. "There's really no excuse for it. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't that bad, I was scared! But you were scared. The Crystal Gems were scared. But only I left," A long quiet stretched over them, suffocatingly silent, unspoken words that needed to be said hung over them like the stars that decorated the night sky. Peridot broke it with a dry laugh.  
"Well that's that! You're sorry, I forgive you, so we're all good," She exclaimed, her voice filled with a fake cheeriness. Lapis stared mournfully at her friend, not quite believing there was nothing left to say.  
"Peridot?"  
"No, Lapis, it's really okay-"  
"Peridot!  
"We should just go find pumpkin-"  
"PERIDOT!" Her voice rose in agitation, which got the shorter gem's attention. Lapis placed a hand on Peridot's shoulder. "Is there anything you want to say to me?" Peridot drew a blank, hesitating.  
"I..." She halted.  
“You can tell me,” Lapis urged, her big, blue eyes round with concern. Peridot clenched her fists, staring stressfully into her visor, clutched in her hands. Her reflection stared back up at her.  
“What you did was wrong. I didn’t like it, and I wish you’d stayed, and I wish I’d been able to convince you, and I wish you’d just… just… thought of how I was feeling for once!” She burst out. Lapis flinched, her hand retracting from Peridot’s shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, but Peridot cut her off. “NO. You don’t get to say anything. You want me talk, well then I’m talking. You know how hard it was to say something that whole day? Ever since you were set on leaving, I’d been wanting to tell you no, I don’t want to leave, but at the same time I didn’t want to hurt your feelings!” Peridot’s dam had been torn away, and now everything was spilling out.  
“And that’s the thing with you, Lapis! If I say something that you don’t agree with, or that offends you in any way, you do that thing where you just stare at me angrily for a moment and walk away to mope somewhere! You’re selfish! You think you matter more than anyone else. So I always have to be tip-toeing around you, making sure I don’t say the wrong thing, because then I’M in the wrong! Then I’M the bad guy!” She was shouting now, not caring whether her voice was heard all through Beach City. “And then when I finally put myself out there, give the most sincere thing I’ve ever said, you leave! You left Steven, you left the Crystal Gems, you left earth! You… you left ME!” Peridot caught sight of Pearl peering through the the door, curious as to what all the fuss was about.  
“You know what I thought when you left? I thought ‘What’d I do? Maybe if I said something different… maybe if I hadn’t said anything at all… this is my fault.’. Yeah, that’s right, I blamed myself. I spent weeks cooped up in Steven’s bathroom wondering what I could’ve done to make you stay. I blamed myself for something YOU did,” Tears singed the edges of Peridot’s eyes. She was standing up now, pointing at Lapis, all of the ugly truths flowing word after word. “It took me so long to realize that it wasn’t my fault. It was YOUR fault! YOU left, not me! YOU abandoned earth, not me! YOU took everything I own and flew away!” Tears rolled down both of the gems’ cheeks.  
“And then you just… come back! Like nothing happened! All you said to me was ‘Hey’! What’s that supposed to mean?! Not ‘I missed you’ or ‘I’m sorry’, just ‘Hey’. And your explanation was ‘I couldn’t stay away’? Oh really? Is that it? You refuse to turn back when you hear your friends’ pleads, and you just randomly change your mind, no questions asked?! Oh, and did I forget to mention you dropped our barn on the beach, destroying it and everything inside!” Peridot trembled, fury and frustration pouring out of her eyes. “There, I talked!” She finished her rant and dropped to her knees.  
Silence filled the balcony. There was nothing left to say. Lapis’s mind raced to try and explain, to say something, anything. But to no avail. It was all true, after.  
“There’s nothing to say. I can’t protest. You’re right. And I’m sorry,” Her voice was gentle, unsure, like poking a lion. “You know what I thought when I left? I thought about you. I thought about you all day, every day,” A light blush touched her cheeks. Carefully, she reached out a hand to Peridot’s. Surprisingly, Peridot didn’t pull away.  
“I didn’t mean to yell,” Peridot murmured.  
“It’s okay,” Lapis comforted with a sad smile. “I think, after all I did, I needed someone to yell at me,” Peridot squeezed Lapis’s hand, then pulled her into a hug. Lapis’s eyes widened in shock for a moment, processing, then hugged back. “Let’s start over, okay? Our friendship kicked off kind of bumpy, and we- I made a lot of mistakes. But we’re both better people now.”  
“Yeah,” Peridot’s voice came out muffled, then she lifted her head. “We’re better people, therefore our odds of having a better friendship will increase significantly! It’s just math,” Lapis chuckled, a grin sweeping across her face.  
“Well, what do you say we kick off our new and improved friendship with some Camp Pining Hearts?” She asked. Peridot beamed.  
“That would be nice.”


End file.
